Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers believes Luis Suarez is being victimized by English football's authorities, saying the striker's 10-match ban for biting an opponent was given "against the man rather than the incident."

In his two years at Anfield, Suarez has also served an eight-match ban from the English Football Association for racially abusing Manchester United defender Patrice Evra.

Health officials in Somalia are rolling out a new five-in-one vaccine for children that they say will save thousands of lives.

Meanwhile, in Abu Dhabi Thursday, global health leaders unveiled a six-year plan to eradicate polio. Close to three-quarters of the plan's projected $5.5 billion cost has already been pledged.

French prosecutors have placed the publisher and photographer of unauthorized topless snaps of Prince William's wife, Kate, under formal criminal investigation, they said Thursday.

Caroline Chassain, spokeswoman for the Nanterre prosecutor, said that Mondadori Magazines France and local photographer Valerie Suau were placed under investigation earlier this month over possible criminal exploitation of the images, which appeared in the French "Closer" magazine last September.

Gay rights groups are pushing to adjust a bipartisan Senate bill to include gay couples, but Democrats are treading carefully, wary of adding another divisive issue that could lose Republican support and jeopardize the entire bill.

Both parties want the bill to succeed. Merely getting to agreement on the basic framework for the immigration overhaul, which would create a long and costly path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million people in the U.S. illegally, was no small feat for senators. And getting it through a divided Congress is still far from a done deal.

Scientists at the world's biggest atom smasher have found further reasons for the apparent lack of antimatter in the universe.

A team working with data from CERN's Large Hadron Collider says it has discovered a particle that decays unevenly into matter and antimatter.

China's state news agency says one person died and 20 others were sickened after a chef mistakenly added pesticide instead of a sauce as he was making lunch.

Xinhua News Agency said in a brief dispatch Thursday that the chef was among those who fell ill after eating the lunch at a construction site in northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The others who were sickened were migrant workers. Two people were in critical condition.

Microsoft is inviting journalists to an Xbox event at its Redmond, Washington, headquarters that will likely shed light on its next video game console.

Microsoft Corp. said Wednesday that the May 21 event will reveal a new generation of games, TV and entertainment. Nineteen days later Microsoft plans to reveal more details about its games at the E3 video game expo in Los Angeles.

For a few surreal minutes, a mere 12 words on Twitter caused the world's mightiest stock market to tremble.

No sooner did hackers send a false Associated Press tweet reporting explosions at the White House on Tuesday than investors started dumping stocks — eventually unloading $134 billion worth.

An Indonesian player who punched a referee in the face has been banned for life by the country's football authority.

Pieter Rumaropen, a striker for Papua province club Persiwa Wamena, punched referee Muhaimin in the face after he awarded a penalty to Pelita Bandung Raya during a Super League match on Sunday in West Java's capital Bandung.

San Antonio, Oklahoma City and Indiana all took big strides toward the next stage of the NBA playoffs by winning their home games on Wednesday and taking 2-0 series leads.

San Antonio's Tony Parker had 28 points and seven assists as the Spurs beat the Los Angeles Lakers 102-91, Oklahoma City Thunder squandered a 15-point fourth-quarter lead but regrouped to edge the Houston Rockets 105-102 and Indiana's Paul George had his highest-scoring playoff game with 27 points to lead the Pacers to a 113-98 win over the Atlanta Hawks.